~~ Please promise you’ll stay with me now, as it may get confusing in this week’s recounting of life in dementia-adjacent land.

~~ The aide that wasn’t supposed to leave last week and did? The one that replaced her turned out to be the most knee-jerk liar this side of Donald Trump. The first day she arrived, she trots up and down the back stairs to “her” room (our former guest room) at least three times that I hear/see. When my husband says to her later that first evening, “When I drove up, I noticed the light is on in your room while you’re down here,” she immediately says, “I haven’t been up there yet.”

~~ It goes on like this for almost a week. She “fries up a bake” on the stove and leaves flour all over the counter, but she didn’t clean because it wasn’t her mess She heats up something red and smelly in the microwave, but when I have gobs of red and smelly stuff clinging to the inside of said appliance, it wasn’t she that cooked.

~~ She places a fork in front of her patient and tells her to eat. My husband says, “She needs to be fed.” [Lying aide] says “[Prior aide] says she eats by herself.” Sure.

~~ The patient has an open cut and [Lying aide] is told to keep it bandaged. During the course of the day, she comes to find me for plastic cutlery and other sundries. That evening, my husband sees there’s no bandage on the open wound. Why? [Lying aide] says, “There are no bandages here.” What? You come in to ask for plastic flatware and Pine Sol but not a Band Aid? Shrug, double-shrug.

~~ I tell her clearly that we have a very old cesspool and under no circumstances can we do more than two loads of wash a day. On Tuesday, I hear her do a wash, then another, and I know my chance to wash the towels just got delayed. Then I hear a third load go in and I ask her what gives. “Oh, they told me to do it.” They? “Yes, the agency called and said [Prior aide] is returning tomorrow and I need to wash the sheets for her.” Ummm, wouldn’t you wash them tomorrow, because you’ll be sleeping on them tonight? Shrug, glare, double-shrug.

~~ Next day (“tomorrow”) she moans to my husband, “Oh, I am sick. I called the agency for a replacement but they told me [Prior aide] is in the hospital.” WTF? She told me yesterday she was leaving today!

~~ My husband calls the agency and is told, “[Prior aide] is out-of-state and we just found out [Lying aide] is so sick. You’ll have to help her out until we can find someone.” My husband related that it was Yom Kippur, we were on our way to services, and we were being played by [Lying aide] who either lied about the laundry/leaving or is lying about the sick/leaving.

~~ [Lying aide] leaves and new aide comes in. She takes a look at her room and says it’s disgustingly filthy. I sympathize and she says, “It’s OK. [Lying aide] was sick.” No, she was a slob. And a lying denier.

~~ I made a note to write to day about stagnant stench. However, I forget which stink on what day. Your loss, I guess!

~~ I have so much to say about the disgusting man who wants to be POTUS despite being a thin-skinned serial assaulter, megalomaniac, racists, would-be tin pot dictator, perv, misogynist, xenophobe, and thug who looks like he’s never been in a locker room. I’ll just let this stand:

~~ In a very interesting discussion about the browning of the USA and why so many people in this country think the country is “broken,” a reporter cited a man he’d interviewed. That man remarked that we’re trying to hold together a democracy when we’re really a plurality. There’s no template for that — the USA is different from the homogenous empires of the past. White kids in pre-school today will be in the minority and those who wax nostalgic about the 50s and 60s can’t accept that any more than they can accept a black man or woman as POTUS. To quote Cher, “Snap out of it!” Or to quote me: We are who we are and we are who we will be. We can accept and thrive, or splinter apart. (OK, Texas can go. And maybe one other state.)

~~ How about we ponder something even deeper and potentially more meaningful? This fortune from a cookie might say it all… or it might be some giant head game being played by a bored copywriter in the fortune cookie factory!